I think Petr answered the question. In general, with pottery tea caddies, you are not going to get a good seal unless the inner lid is lined with a thicker material. Wax would be okay for long term storage but not every day use. One could build a foil liner for the lid that would be helpful in keeping it more airtight but it will never be as good as a well made Chinese pewter or even modern plastic lined caddies that keep air out more or less completely. Aesthetics are important for me so the trade off is acceptable.

Rebecca will be hunting for that second job just to fund desires to purchase this artist's work. Honestly. Petr...you are lulling us into a hypnotic state...dreaming of your tea things....somebody knock me upside the head and wake me up!!!

Thank all of you for your posts. The glaze on Mirka’s plate is not only nice coat but there is also interesting story behind. It is clear clay glaze. We call it “Black Magda” after our friend Magda, which gave us first chunk of this material with words “lets try it in your kiln, we were in the Krušné Mountains digging semi-precious stones on one special place and this stones were covered by this clay” The clay was green like algae with some nacre shine. So I have mixed it with water, sieved it, and used it in consistency of cream like glaze. After our reduction firing at 1320°C it changed to this black glaze-engobe. So we asked our friend Magda to take us to this “secret” place of precious stones in The Mountains and we have brought back to our studio several bags of this material. Now, when I am sieving this glaze for glazing I sometime find small chalcedony or opal. I like it.